This blog was created for Niles Animal Hospital & Bird Medical Center by Peter S. Sakas DVM in an effort to provide information & discussion about animal related issues. It may move into some eccentric directions on occasion if the mood strikes me as I get more comfortable in this form of communication. I am open to suggestions & comments about the blog. Also view our hospital website www.nilesanimalhospital.com or Facebook page Niles Animal Hospital and Bird Medical Center.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Animal Smarts: What Do Dogs, Elephants and Dolphins Know?

An interesting article on found on the AVMA SmartBrief.

WASHINGTON – It's not just man's
closer primate relatives that exhibit brain power. Dolphins, dogs and
elephants are teaching us a few lessons, too.

Dolphin
brains involve completely different wiring from primates, especially in
the neocortex, which is central to higher functions such as reasoning
and conscious thought.

Dolphins are so distantly
related to humans that it's been 95 million years since we had even a
remotely common ancestor. Yet when it comes to intelligence, social
behavior and communications, some researchers say dolphins come as close
to humans as our ape and monkey cousins.

Maybe closer.

"They
understand concepts like zero, abstract concepts. They do everything
that chimpanzees do and bonobos can do," said Lori Marino, a
neuroscientist at Emory University who specializes in dolphin research.
"The fact is that they are so different from us and so much like us at
the same time."

In recent years, animal researchers
have found that thought processes in critters aren't a matter of how
closely related they are to humans. You don't have to be a primate to be
smart.

Dolphin brains look nothing like human
brains, Marino said. Yet, she says, "the more you learn about them, the
more you realize that they do have the capacity and characteristics that
we think of when we think of a person."

These
mammals recognize themselves in the mirror and have a sense of social
identity. They not only know who they are, but they also have a sense of
who, where and what their groups are. They interact and comprehend the
health and feelings of other dolphins so fast it as if they are online
with each other, Marino said.

Animal intelligence
"is not a linear thing," said Duke University researcher Brian Hare, who
studies bonobos, which are one of man's closest relatives, and dogs,
which are not.

"Think of it like a toolbox," he said. "Some species have an amazing hammer. Some species have an amazing screwdriver."

For
dogs, a primary tool is their obsessive observation of humans and
ability to understand human communication, Hare said. For example, dogs
follow human pointing so well that they understand it whether it's done
with a hand or a foot; chimps don't, said Hare, whose upcoming book is
called "The Genius of Dogs."

Then there are elephants.

They
empathize, they help each other, they work together. In a classic
cooperation game, in which animals only get food if two animals pull
opposite ends of a rope at the same time, elephants learned to do that
much quicker than chimps, said researcher Josh Plotnik, head of elephant
research at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation in Thailand.

They
do even better than monkeys at empathy and rescue, said Plotnik. In the
wild, he has seen elephants stop and work together to rescue another
elephant that fell in a pit.

"There is something in the environment, in the evolution of this species that is unique," he says.